Friday, May 18, 2007

Iowa Voice blogged Democrats keep saying how they support the troops, but not the war, right? If that’s true, then how do they explain this?

Susan Jaenke traveled to Washington last month to ask lawmakers for help after her daughter was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq. Before her death, Navy reservist Jaime Jaenke wrote a letter to her mother, telling her she wanted the military’s $100,000 “death gratuity” to be given to her parents to help raise her daughter, Kayla. But the law requires money to go first to a spouse or child. Kayla - not her grandparents - collected the $100,000, which goes into a trust until she’s 18. Jaime Jaenke’s military paychecks had been helping the family make ends meet. When she died, the money stopped coming. Now the grandparents can’t use the death benefit to cover expenses for Kayla, who is 10. It’s an obvious case of the law not working for families - families whose loved ones died in the line of duty. It an obvious problem Congress needs to fix. But it’s also painfully obvious there is something wrong in Washington. Partisan politics have prevented this Iowa family and others like it from getting help. Lawmakers should put aside politics and help the people they were elected to serve.

The problem is that if they do anything to help the military, the ravid anti-war netroots will go crazy. Tey firgue they are taking a chance by even saying they support the troops; they certainly can't do it.

In February, Iowa Republican Rep. Tom Latham introduced a bill to allow service members to designate a parent, brother or sister who has custody of a service member’s minor child as the recipient of the death benefit. Passing it is a no-brainer. Like the Jaenkes, more than 140 families around the country have had trouble collecting benefits to help care for the children of fallen soldiers, Latham says. Lawmakers even apologized to Susan Jaenke after she testified. But apparently being sorry doesn’t trump partisan bickering in Congress.If Democrats support the troops so much, then why, may I ask, did they block this bill? Simple. It’s not about their so-called support, and it never was. It never will be, either. It’s about one thing: power. The power to control everything. Most importantly, it’s about “getting even” for every perceived injustice they had to face over the last twelve years (of course to them, the mere fact that they were in the minority was an injustice). They had their little attempt to turn this country into a socialist state interrupted, and now it’s payback time.

Nope, they could have helped people like this family, but instead they told them, in so many words, to piss off. “Sorry, but we’re too busy trying to surrender to al Qaeda at the moment. Now if you’ll excuse us, we have some lobbyists to cozy up to. Campaign promises? What are those? Never heard of ‘em.”

In other words, it’s that typical Democrat display of “compassion” you hear so much about, but almost NEVER see. But don’t question whether or not they truly “care”, because…well, they SAY they care…isn’t that enough??